


Suffering is a Choice, and We Can Refuse It

by Bullfinch



Series: After Kirkwall [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Re-Education
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:45:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke and Fenris provoke the ire of the Ben-Hassrath. Fortunately, the Ben-Hassrath have a particular agent in the Inquisition’s inner circle who is willing to detain the two for some much-needed re-education.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Takes place after Trust. Post-Inquisition. Contains spoilers for the Iron Bull’s personal quest in Inquisition.  
> Title is from Canto 1 of the Qun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Written in a bit of a rush as I'm about to have limited computer access, sorry if you can tell.)

Fenris curls his hand into a fist, then relaxes it. The soft leather gloves are, at least, no more constricting than the rest of this ridiculous outfit. And he hopes they’ll be thick enough to hide the glow of his tattoos, in case he grows nervous.

Hawke’s adjusting his sash, inspecting himself in the full-length mirror that stands in the corner of their temporary quarters. Then he turns, putting his hands on his hips. “What do you think?”

Fenris half-shrugs. “Presentable.”

Hawke sags a little. “That’s it? I stuff myself into the most expensive finery Skyhold has to offer and all I get is ‘presentable?’ “

He is rather stuffed into it, his broad chest stretching the fabric, the cloth wrinkling near the seams. “I’m sorry, Hawke, I suppose I just don’t have a taste for fancy clothes.” Fenris sits down on the edge of the bed, shifting uncomfortably. These trousers are…soft. Very soft. It’s unsettling. “I think I prefer you in armor.”

“Thought you preferred me out of armor.” Hawke grins.

Fenris can’t help grinning back. “You have me there.”

“Well, I think  _you_  look positively ravishing.”

Hawke crouches in front of Fenris and kisses him. Fenris leans into it, grasping Hawke’s lapel, pulling him closer. Perhaps if he can get them both  _out_  of these ridiculous clothes—

“Oh no you don’t.” Hawke stands abruptly. “We  _have_  to do this. You and I have too many enemies, and this is our best chance to finally rope in some people who will help us. The Inquisitor promised me a full platter of introductions.”

Fenris holds back a groan, fully aware that he’s already been sounding like a whiny child. “I know.”

“Anyway, like I told you, I’ll do all the socializing. You just have to be there. Let people see you.”

The clock on the wall peals out a series of glassy chimes. Eight o’clock. Fenris grimaces. It’s only a few hours. Then he and Hawke can come back here and fall asleep in a bed (a  _bed_ —it still seems too good to be true) and wake up whenever they want, after which they’ll have breakfast prepared by Orlesian chefs and go take a stroll in a sunny garden bursting with three dozen different kinds of flowers. And then maybe an afternoon nap, or perhaps some other activities to tire them out a little first…

Hawke holds out his hand. “Will you do me the honor of accompanying to this grand fête?”

“If you insist.” Fenris takes his hand, and together they head for the hall. It’s just a party. It has to be better than nearly being slaughtered by zealous Qunari, which has been their sole occupation of the past several weeks. Fenris steels himself. He’s faced down full platoons of karashok and lived to tell the tale. A few simpering nobles are nothing to worry about.

——

After turning it over in his head, Fenris decides he’d prefer the karashok.

The karashok just want to kill him. That desire is resolved quickly, because they die and then he doesn’t have to deal with them anymore. But these nobles want to  _know_  him, and that is a desire much less easily taken care of. He can’t kill them, unfortunately. And neither can he snap at them to make them go away—Hawke forbade that. So he tries to bore them into disinterest. It doesn’t work, or at least not fast enough to make things any more bearable. Halfway down the hall, he notices Commander Cullen having what looks like the exact same problem. Fenris feels a pang of sympathy for the man, knowing he must have to do this often—at least far more often than Fenris does.

Worst are the compliments.  _“Such lovely eyes!” “That outfit does you many favors, my friend.” “Some of my less enlightened countrymen say elves are an unsightly people…you stand before me as proof they could not be more wrong!”_ A hundred variations from a hundred different people. Fenris dodges and parries as best he can, especially the offers to dance (the first suggestion sends a thrill of dread twisting through his gut as he babbles out a sputtered refusal). Every so often he’ll look for Hawke and find him down the hall or across the dance floor, engaged in conversation with a cluster of brightly ornamented Orlesians. They’ll make eye contact, and Hawke will offer an apologetic grin. Of course. Still caught up. This is, after all, their best chance.

Mainly Fenris finds he doesn’t want the attention. The decadence reminds him of Tevinter already, and the lingering eyes only make it worse. He attended parties at Danarius’s side, placed squarely in the middle of a sea of nobles used to getting whatever they wanted. He would feel their gazes devouring him, and would draw closer to Danarius, seeking protection. But he has no protection now, not with Hawke stuck currying favor with the Orlesians. So then what’s to stop these people from—

Fenris blinks, annoyed.  _He_  can stop these people, with nothing but a firm “no.” As he does now, when another request for a dance springs up. The prospective partner wanders away, crestfallen. A brief reprieve. Once again Fenris looks for Hawke.

And doesn’t find him. Must be hidden somewhere in this sea of velvet and silk. But this time he does spot a broad-horned Qunari, roaring with laughter, his glass of wine looking no larger than a thimble in his massive hand. Fenris watches for a moment, wary. He and Hawke aren’t exactly on the best of terms with the Qunari.

Then another wave approaches, a group of three women whose enormous skirts provide them with an unencroachable three-foot buffer in all directions. Fenris wishes briefly he had one of those. At least then he could preserve  _some_  degree of personal space. The women are particularly curious about him, testing his ability to spin out vague answers that contain neither information nor falsehoods. But at last, with great effort, he bores them away too. He wonders when the stream of interested parties will slow. Surely word should have spread by now that he is better appreciated from afar.

Once more he searches, without success, for Hawke. In neck-deep, no doubt. But he does spot a pod of nobles headed straight for him, laughing the kind of laugh  that bespeaks too much drink. No. Not more of them. Another frantic scan for Hawke, again in vain. There must be some way to escape—

Fenris turns and heads down the hall at a brisk pace. With agility he inserts himself between two lace-clad nobles and sticks out his hand, as Hawke did just before they left. “Commander Cullen. Will you dance with me?”

Cullen, already backed against the wall by a devoted cadre of admirers, gapes at this new complication.

Fenris lets his gaze slip down a couple of notches until it hovers just above menace. Cullen swallows. “Er—of course. Let’s.”

A chorus of devastated sighs from the nobles as their attentions are dismissed in favor of the mysterious tattooed elf. But they part, and Fenris takes Cullen’s hand, guiding him to the floor. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to lead me. I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m doing.”

Cullen faces Fenris and, hesitating, holds his waist. “Er—I mean, I can do that, but I’m just not—why did you ask me to do this again?”

“I needed a reprieve and I couldn’t find Hawke. And you’re the only person here I know. Besides Varric, whom I doubt I’d be able to tear away from his fanatics.” Fenris half-smiles. “Anyway, you looked like you could use a reprieve yourself.”

Cullen groans, his posture slumping. “This happens every time. Just because I’m not—attached at the moment doesn’t mean I’m  _looking_  for someone.”

The dance is slow, the rebec singing out a pastoral air while the gamba plays counterpoint below. Fenris follows the steps with ease. “Perhaps you should go on the run. The life is a hard one, but at least there are no parties.”

That gets a laugh. “It’s an attractive idea, but there’s just too much for me to do here.”

Fenris imitates the couples around them, breaking from Cullen for a moment to perform a slow twirl. “As there was last time we spoke.” A couple of months back, when his visit occurred under much more dire circumstances, the red lyrium in his markings driving him mad. But after he was cured, he found comfort in speaking with Cullen, whom he had known, however tentatively, before any of this mess began.

Cullen takes Fenris’s waist again and clasps his hand, heaving a sigh. “You’d think with Corypheus dead things would have gotten easier, but somehow that just isn’t true. At all.”

Fenris lets him vent. It’s relaxing, listening to something that’s not an endless stream of questions or compliments. He’s just starting to be in a good mood again when a certain phrase catches his ear. “Wait—your alliance with the Qunari still stands?”

Cullen frowns. “Yes, why?”

“Hawke and I have just come from Tevinter. The state of unrest has made things dangerous for some in the lower classes, and they’ve been forced to leave their homes. Which makes them an excellent target for the slave trade. Hawke and I were there going after slavers until perhaps a month ago, when we started seeing Qunari units coming through, snatching people up to make converts of them.” Fenris glides backward, following the gentle pressure of Cullen’s lead. “I didn’t think the Inquisition would tolerate that in an ally.”

A grimace. “We’ve just received reports of this behavior. Josephine is in contact with our liaisons, but the Inquisitor doesn’t want to risk the alliance by sending forces to stop the attacks. Not if diplomacy remains an option. I…well. I have advised the Inquisitor on the matter, and she has made her decision.”

Fenris allows himself to be dipped. It appears he and the commander are of the same mind on the matter. As he rises, he searches out the Qunari he saw before but can’t find him. “I saw a Qunari here earlier, was that one of your liaisons?”

“Hm? Oh. Of a sort, I suppose,” Cullen replies. “He joined the Inquisition partially to lend the aid of his mercenary company, but he lost them in the field. So now it’s just him. He…used to spy on us. For the Ben-Hassrath. But now that the alliance is official, it’s all a bit moot.”

Unlikely. “I…would be wary of him. My former master was closely engaged in fighting the Qunari for a time. They may have had dreadnoughts and gaatlok and warriors twice as strong as any human, but their deadliest weapons were always their spies.”

As Cullen mulls it over, something makes Fenris scan the hall for Hawke again. And again he is nowhere to be found.

Perhaps it’s the grim topic of discussion, or perhaps simply the desire to not be at this party anymore, but Fenris halts, bringing their dance to a stop. “I haven’t been able to find Hawke for some time. I’m going to look for him.”

Alarm flares briefly on Cullen’s face, scoured away by a battle calm. “What is it? Do you think something’s wrong?”

“I…it’s probably nothing.” Fenris steps away and bows. “I am sorry to abandon you, Commander. I wish you luck.”

The seriousness lingers, but he nods. “Thank you, Fenris.”

The hall is scarcely big enough to contain all of the guests. Fenris finds his forward progress hampered not only by the sheer press of bodies but also by yet more people trying to catch his attention. He ducks past them with a curt “I’m sorry, I’m looking for someone.” Feathers brush his face, lace snags on his buttons. It’s impossible to get anywhere. He wonders to himself why anyone attends these things at all.

One pass around the hall. A second pass. And still no Hawke. Fenris stops to think. Where would he go? Perhaps if he were feeling unwell, he might retire for the evening—but surely he would have told Fenris first. Maybe he wanted to speak with someone privately?

The best place Fenris can think to start is their chambers. So he goes to a side door and eases it open, trying not to attract attention. In the threshold he lingers a moment, until he catches Cullen’s eye. Likely an unnecessary precaution, but there’s nothing wrong with having someone know where you’ve gone and to expect you back.

The door swings shut. Fenris finds himself in an empty hallway. No one is looking at him. No one is talking, except behind the solid wood of the door.

It is an unmatched relief.

But he has a mission, so he starts off with purpose in his stride, his boots clicking on the stone floor.

And promptly gets lost. Skyhold is vast, and he’s only been here once before. But he runs across a kind woman carrying a stained dress who points him in the correct direction. So, momentum only slightly broken, he marches off. Hawke is probably back at the hall already, wondering where in the Void Fenris has run off to.

At last he finds the door to their room, framed on either side by an ornate Orlesian mirror and a little painting of a griffon. He knocks twice, calling out “Hawke?”

No answer. Just in case, Fenris turns the knob and pushes the door open.

Hawke isn’t there. Instead, sitting on the bed is the Qunari he saw earlier, looming even larger in the small space. “Hello!” he says, rising, stretching his arms above his head. “Ooh, that feels good. Anyway, you’re Fenris, right? With the tattoos? I’m the Iron Bull. Nice to meet you. Now, if you want to see Hawke again, you’re going to have to come with me.”


	2. Chapter 2

“ ‘The Iron Bull?’ Really?” Fenris sneers. “Are you sure you don’t mean ‘Hissrad?’ ”

He chuckles. “Well, yeah, but I usually go by Bull.”

Then he approaches, and Fenris darts out of the way, ready to defend himself. But the Qunari only closes the door and leans up against it, nonchalant.

The anticipation of battle is setting in. Fenris becomes aware of his stance, starts cataloguing his surroundings. A small room with few furnishings. His and Hawke’s packs, containing their weapons, lie beneath the bed, to the hissrad's left. “How do I know Hawke’s not dead already?”

“Well, there were some people who wanted him dead.” Bull inclines his head in concession. “But I guess you two weren’t too keen on cleanup in Tevinter when you were killing Qunari. Turns out the ones who got away from you had nothing but good things to say. Some of our spies, too, after they realized they’d been spied on. That Hawke guy’s pretty good. And you, with the whole turning-blue thing? That is  _awesome.”_

Fenris puts it together. “You—you want to convert us.”

“That’s the plan.”

“By force, I imagine.”

The Qunari shrugs. “That part’s up to you.”

Fenris snorts. “You think I’d agree to give up my freedom of choice? You must know my history.”

“Whoa there.” Bull raises his hands. “Slavery and the Qun are two  _completely_  different things.”

“Not different enough.” He keeps his eyes fixed on his opponent. The man is  _very_  large. He will be difficult to kill—and perhaps…should not be killed, as he is the only lead to where Hawke has been taken.

Bull must see Fenris weighing his options, because he grows serious. “Listen, if you don’t come quietly, they’re gonna start taking fingers off of your kadan, so why don’t you just lose the anger?”

The thought throws off a spark of fear, but Fenris controls it. “Taking fingers? That would it make it more difficult for him to assassinate the enemies of the Qun, don’t you think? Not to mention disfigurement is somewhat memorable. Hardly a quality you’d want in a spy.”

Bull lets out a deep groan. “Wow, you really want to do this the hard way, don’t you?”

He does. Hawke has been kidnapped, and Fenris very much wants to take it out of this hissrad. But then the trail is cut off. By the time the Nightingale’s eyes have found Hawke again, it may be too late. Still, if he  _does_  turn himself in to find Hawke, then they’ll both be stuck in a hole somewhere with no one on the outside having the slightest idea where to start looking.

It’s a difficult situation. Fenris decides he’ll mull it over during the coming fight. He shrugs. “It doesn’t have to be hard. You can just give me back Hawke and we’ll go our separate ways.”

“I don’t think so, elf.”

Fenris waits for the Qunari to come to him. That’s the trick in dealing with a large opponent; he himself can’t bring enough force to bear to control the fight, so instead he must manipulate the force his opponent exerts.

Bull steps forward, which is all he needs to do in this tiny room to cross it, and makes a grab. But Fenris is already up on the bed, the mattress sinking under his boots. He normally prefers to be barefoot—more precise movement that way—but considering one stomp from the Bull could crush every bone in his foot, he’s glad now that formal dress requires shoes.

His opponent stays on the floor—smart; the mattress frame would surely break under his weight. “You won’t be able to get away from me, you know. Surrendering will be quicker, and nobody has to walk away with bruises.”

“Oh, I plan to leave you with more than a few bruises.” Largely a reflexive response; Fenris still hasn’t decided what to do. He stays still, waiting. Bull throws himself forward and makes another grab. As soon as he’s overbalanced, Fenris seizes hold of the massive horns and shoves his head down, vaulting over the man entirely. But a huge arm lashes out, the Qunari flailing back in a blind strike. It’s well-placed, catching Fenris in the ribs as he comes down in the middle of the floor. He had thought to make for the door but instead staggers sideways, and then Bull whirls around (not so overbalanced after all, it seems) and wraps him up in both arms.

But all is not lost. Fenris plants his hands against the Qunari’s stomach and pushes hard, rounding out his back against the hold. Bull’s grip starts to slide apart, so he compensates by leaning over, piling his weight on top of Fenris.

Predictable. Fenris hooks his foot around Bull’s back leg and yanks it toward him. A grunt, and the huge body shifts, too much weight brought forward too fast. Fenris jams his hips into the Qunari’s and twists.

With a satisfying  _thud_ , Bull’s back hits the ground, Fenris on top of him.

Fenris has only a split-second to escape the hold, when the shock of impact loosens the arms keeping him captive. But he takes advantage, squirming out rather than trying to break it, and he’s on his feet again. The Qunari’s getting up, but he has a lot more body to deal with, and by the time he’s standing Fenris has yanked the quilt off the bed and throws it over Bull’s horns, tugging down so it catches on the points.

It gives him a second, as his foe lets out an annoyed growl and claws at the offending fabric. He dives to the left, snatches one of the bags from under the bed, and coils his leg up, jamming his heel as hard as he can into the side of the Qunari’s knee.

A shout—of pain or anger or both, Fenris isn’t sure. But the foot was planted, and the knee makes a popping noise as it buckles.

Fenris darts behind him and stumbles out the door, kicking it shut once more.

He runs down the hallway, opening the bag as he goes, praying it’s his so the damn shortsword is in there—and the first thing he sees is the leather kit containing all of Hawke’s poisons. Excellent. Still nagging is the fact that he has  _yet_  to figure out what the best course of action is in this situation. Slip the Qunari and hope Hawke’s captors have left a trail obvious enough for Inquisition spies to follow? Or allow himself to be caught so he can try and break Hawke out himself? Fenris halts in the middle of the corridor, the indecision running through him like an electric current.

Which is when he sees Commander Cullen standing frozen at the corner, mouth half-open as if about to form a question.

Fenris makes a big sweeping gesture to one side— _get back around the corner_ —and, imprecise as it is, Cullen gets the idea, throwing himself behind the wall. Just as Fenris hears behind him the splintering of wood, and a rumbling growl. “That was  _not_  a nice feeling. Gonna be limping for weeks, I can tell already.”

The decision is made. Fenris plucks the two daggers from Hawke’s bag, sliding them from their leather sheaths, and turns to face his opponent. Information. He needs to provide information. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Because I’m going to kill you tonight. And then I’m going to go to Hawke and kill all of the qalaba who want to break his mind.”

He hopes that’s enough.  _I’m going to go to Hawke._ A signal to Cullen to let the Qunari take him.  _And kill all of the qalaba_   _who want to break his mind._  The plot. Kidnapping and re-education.

“You talk real big for a puny guy.” Bull grins. “You’re gonna make a great karasaad.”

Fenris raises the daggers and tries to look like he knows what he’s doing. “I will never fight for the Qun. You’re going to have to settle yourself with a viddath-bas.” He smirks. “It will be a shame to waste these markings, won’t it?”

The irritation on Bull’s face eases some. “I guess we’ll see.”

That gives Fenris pause. He’d been given to understand that the only recourse for a resistant bas—like himself—was to be dosed up with qamek until he was no more than a mindless drone, unfit to do any real fighting. But the hissrad seems sure of success.

And he’s also charging. Fenris readies himself.

The Qunari is  _fast_ , given room to run, and Fenris barely has enough time to anticipate the charge before he has to move. His opponent takes up the entire damned corridor, so the dodge is messy, leaving him flattened against the wall. Bull turns on him, huge and inescapable, and Fenris’s feet in his clumsy boots are all wrong—too close together, all his weight in one place. So he drives forward instead, thrusting with both daggers, aware in some resigned corner of his mind that it’s a bad maneuver in this position.

He finds out a moment later why. Bull diverts one thrust inward and pinions both of Fenris’s arms together in one massive hand. Fenris realizes that in about half a second his bones will be broken so—

—as Bull crushes his hand closed he grasps only a pair of phantom limbs, his pale skin bathed in the blue-white lyrium glow. There’s a clang of metal on stone as two daggers fall to the floor.

Bull grins in delight. “Okay, now  _that_  is cool!”

Fenris decides to abandon the daggers. He’ll probably last longer without them. He slips one ghostly arm from Bull’s useless grasp and jabs his elbow out.

Bull takes the blow rather than giving up his position, receiving the impact to his solar plexus with little more than a grunt. Not good. Fenris is trapped against the wall. No room for another throw, and he can’t make space for one either. An enormous fist jabs at his gut, and he goes to divert it—without a shred of success. It’s like trying to deflect a battering ram.

It’s a fast strike, some power lost so Bull can withdraw quickly, perhaps leery of another trick. He needn’t be. Fenris doubles over, the breath gone out of him, and only just manages not to throw up. A small victory. Bull wastes no time wrapping him up in an iron-solid chokehold, lifting him clean off the ground.

Fenris kicks in the air, scrabbles at the enormous arm flexed firm around his neck. He could get out of it, use his newest ability and turn his whole body into a collection of lyrium light. But he’s tried to avoid doing that, in case the surprise can give him an advantage when he needs it the most—

“Hah!” the Qunari booms, in his ear. “Can’t ghost your way out of this one, can you?”

He wanted to get caught anyway. It’s just his pride that’s grumbling about it, how the only real blow he managed to land was that kick to the knee. So instead he stifles the urge to escape—as he did many years ago, when his master would hurt him for an hour or more after ordering him with a venomous hiss not to shy away—instead accepts the helplessness and beats the panic down like one would a disobedient dog. Defiance roars up from deep inside him, the staunch refusal to  _ever be helpless again_ , but he thinks of Hawke to sate it. Hawke, who is alone and taken and facing a threat he can’t stab or deceive or slip out of.

Fenris’s vision starts to blacken. His muscles tense, fighting,  _needing_  to fight. He redirects their spasms into uselessness, smacking the Qunari’s powerful arm, kicking his broad shins. The chokehold does not break.

“I’d lose that attitude if I were you.” The voice little more than a distant rumble. “Really. You’d make things a whole lot less awful on yourself.”

Fenris wants to reply, but he doesn’t have the breath to spare.  _Accept it_ , he thinks, as he suffocates, black spots swelling before his eyes.  _Accept it._

Yet he continues to struggle, his consciousness clawing for ground before the world takes a steep tilt and it plunges, still reaching, into the abyss.

——

Something pulls tight around his aching gut.

Fenris moans, trying to curl up and protect himself. It doesn’t help, and his legs slide out again, his head lolling to the side once more. The floor shudders, jostling him.

“Oh, shit. I think he’s waking up.”

“What? I thought the dose was supposed to keep him out until we arrived!”

“It was! That was enough to knock a horse on its ass for at least a few more hours—look, just make sure he doesn’t kick me again, okay?”

Strong hands hold his knees down. Something settles on his shoulders, soft against his skin—his skin?—a stiff leather edge brushing his lips. The sound of clanking, and cold metal on his chest. A closeness by his face, a faint rustling behind his head—

A sensation like the earth has just crumbled out from under him and he’s been cast utterly adrift.

He starts awake, as he sometimes does when he’s close to sleep and feels as if he’s plummeting through some nameless space. The first thing he sees is the hissrad—Bull—leaned in close, and then the tightness around his middle grows even tighter, wrapped firm halfway up his ribs. He tries to take in a breath but this—thing is too constricting, and it keeps his chest from expanding. “Please—“ he gasps, “I can’t—breathe—“

“Actually, I’m pretty sure you can.” Bull flashes an amused smile. “ ‘Cause I see you doing it.”

Or trying, at least, Fenris inhaling in little shallow gasps that simply  _aren’t enough_. He lifts his hands to try and get at this thing around his gut—

The clink of metal. He looks down. His wrists are shackled. And there are more chains, too, three of them in bronze on his chest. The outer two loop beneath his arms, and the center one links the scalloped band of leather at his midsection to—

—the high, stiff collar sitting around his neck. A familiar device. “This is a…saarebas collar?” he mumbles.

“Oh yeah it is. Had to use one made for a kid, ‘cause you’re so tiny.” Bull grins. “And it  _totally_  worked. You were glowing before but you stopped soon as I got the thing closed.”

He’s been stripped of his jacket and shirt, leaving the markings on his upper body exposed. And they’re as dead as he’s ever seen them, could be mistaken for mundane tattoos. He doesn’t feel them either. Only their absence, the shape of the void they’ve left in his senses.

He can’t save Hawke like this.

The wagon lurches, the wooden wall at his back shuddering. His gaze flicks from the Qunari, to human who held his knees down earlier, to the leather cinched tight around his gut, the chains binding his lyrium. They’ve disarmed him of his only remaining weapon.

“Hold still a sec, would you?”

A sharp pain in his arm. Fenris tries to jerk away, but the Qunari is holding him tight, sinking the needle deep into the muscle. “There,” he says, drawing it out, flicking a droplet of blood from the tip. “ _That_  should do it.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” the human mutters.

Fenris finds his mind slipping away. No reason to fight back. No way to win anymore. So he lets the haze smother him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I think we’re all just going to have to accept the fact that my Bull writing is going to be rocky as fuck until I play more of this game…sorry y'all I’ll work on it. Note that a few more references to a previous story (Trust) will pop up, but anything integral is explained.  
> The Qunlat phrases in here (asit tal-eb, maraas shokra, anaan esaam Qun) are all taken from the text of the Qun.

Fenris is in and out. Each time he wakes he’s a little more aware, but still it takes him some time to remember he’s been drugged, and yet longer to realize it was the drugs that led him to abandon hope, not some failure of his own. Because as his mind clears, despite the capture, despite the collar, despite the coming re-education, he knows there is nothing that can turn him from saving Hawke.

Except, apparently, the drugs.

It’s a sound practice. The breaking probably goes much more easily that way. Unsurprising the Qunari have deviated from pure emotional manipulation—they have, after all, been doing this for a long time. No doubt they’re still coming up with new methods.

Finally, he decides to stay awake, to begin (while he can) figuring out how to get them both out of here.

The floor beneath his back is stone, uneven and slightly damp on the bare skin of his shoulderblades. Underground, then. Probably some natural structure. He shuts his eyes and listens. A faint rumble, somewhere aboveground. And an echo-ridden conversation. From the rhythm it’s the common tongue, although there’s the occasional axe-chop of Qunlat intonation severing the fluid flow of speech.

Fenris rolls onto his side and pushes himself upright, holding his middle and gasping. The damn leather binding is still squeezing him at least as well as the hissrad’s chokehold did. There’s a throbbing in his ribs, too, where that flailing arm caught him during the fight. His markings remain dead. He’s become used to the faint glow that shimmers to the surface when he’s hurt or sick. But now he is alone in the dark, the only source of light a flicker of flame from around the corner.

The chamber is small and narrow. With his shackled hands he pulls himself to his feet, grasping a slippery jut of rock. The collar remains stable. The outer circle is high and stiff, standing out from his face as if to catch any magic he might spit out and reflect it back, that it would burn only him. But there’s another band wrapped close around his neck to hold the device securely in place. The effect is one of soft hands clasped gently around his throat, never leaving.

He staggers forward, each step requiring a sincere effort of focus—the drug, whatever it is, still holds his balance hostage. When he rounds the corner he finds the hissrad leaning against the wall, talking to the human. They both look up at his approach.

Something, either surprise or fear, makes him lose his grip on the wall, and he buckles. But the hissrad darts forward and catches him. “Whoa there.”

Fenris wrenches away, snarling out, _“Don’t touch me.”_

The Qunari sighs. “Still mad, huh?”

Fenris smiles without humor. “I don’t particularly like being touched.”

Bull taps his chin as if thinking. “We can accommodate that.”

Fenris hesitates. He had expected the man to try and touch him again, to demonstrate the dynamics of power here. But he refuses to be caught off-guard, and plunges forward without lingering on it. “Where is Hawke?”

In the background the human smiles.

“Hey, you speak Qunlat?” Bull asks. “You tossed out a few words earlier I wouldn’t expect a bas to know.”

Fenris stares him down, thinking. But thinking is hard—when will this poison release him?—so he gives up the truth. “I have…some proficiency.”

“Huh. You’re an interesting kinda guy, aren’t you?” Bull nods with something that looks irritatingly like approval. “Anyways. Let’s go see how Hawke’s doing.”

The human trails by a few paces. Bull stays close, perhaps to catch Fenris again if he falls. “You know, your kadan’s pretty tough. The re-educators tell me they’ve really had to step it up. Maybe you can convince him to make it easier on himself.”

 _I’ll kill you for this._  The thought pounds in his head like a second heartbeat. It’s oddly comforting. A steady rhythm to hold onto, what with his steps turned to stumbling, his breathing shallow and tight. He says nothing.

They advance through the winding tunnel, Bull ducking now and then so his horns don’t catch on the ceiling. Torches slide by on either side. The sconces look salvaged—they’re bubbled with rust, stained white with salt. Most of them are hammered into the wall slightly off the vertical. Obviously the furnishing of this place did not merit much care—either that or it was done in a hurry. Passages branch off here and there, some illuminated, some dark, the humid air radiating from their yawning mouths carrying the scent of seawater and natural decay. Fenris tries to keep track of the turns they’re taking, but his memory is still weak, and the route slips from its frail grasp.

Then Bull calls out. “You ready for the other one?”

A reply in the affirmative echoes down the tunnel. Bull guides Fenris forward.

The chamber is poorly lit, darkness swallowing the back half of it, but Fenris can see enough—the sturdy table in the middle, flanked by two imposing Qunari. And on top of it lies Hawke, apparently uninjured. His face is set with the hard-edged blankness Fenris knows well. He turns his head at the appearance of newcomers.

The blankness folds into open desperation. “No—Fenris!” He props himself up on one elbow, unsteady—more drugs, no doubt. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. They haven’t done anything to me.” Fenris tries to keep his composure, since Hawke, for once, has failed to do so. He realizes he’d held out some faint hope that it was a trick, that Hawke had actually escaped and they were simply trying to break Fenris’s will. But seeing the truth of it, the both of them stuck underground in some seawater cave, drugged to the eyes—

“Let him go. Please.” Hawke struggles to sit up. “I’ll swear to the Qun, I’ll spy for you, I’ll kill for you, I don’t care, just let him go. He’s had enough of having his choices made for him.”

The two Qunari exchange urgent words in Qunlat. Fenris tries to interpret, but their speech is too quick and quiet, and his mind too slow. As it turns out, he doesn’t have to. Bull lets out a laugh. “Well, fuck me! They’re saying he’s been stone fucking cold the whole time they were working on him right up until he saw you.”

Fenris curses himself. There’s still a chance. Cullen knows what happened. They’ve been on their own for a long time, but that’s not true anymore. He just has to relay that somehow without alerting their captors. “Hawke, you need to keep fighting. Do you understand? Don’t let them take you.”

As if his words will do any good. The drug, as he learned, takes away the ability to fight. Fenris waits for the coolness to return to Hawke’s face, but it doesn’t. Maybe the drugs take that too. He stares at Fenris, scared and helpless.

“Anyway, you can see for yourself we didn’t kill him or anything.” Bull steps between them. “Now let’s go. I think you and Lek got some things to talk about.”

The human jerks his head. Fenris is aware that this is an opportunity to go quietly instead of making a scene and ending up thrown over the hissrad’s shoulder. So he goes, praying that the Inquisition can track them, or even be persuaded to come at all.

As he turns he notices something in the far back of the room. A tiny glint of light, hidden away in the dark. A glint in bronze.

——

“Think of Hawke.”

Fenris doesn’t know where he is or who’s speaking. But he does know Hawke, and Hawke is a comfort. So Fenris thinks of him, the warm bulk, the familiar smile.

“Think of the last time you were together.”

The last time…after the flurry of introductions at Skyhold, when they finally reached their quarters and Hawke shut the door behind them. The sight of a real bed was such a wonderful surprise that Fenris turned right around and kissed Hawke on the mouth—

“Think of his touch.”

Hawke grabbing his ass and lifting him up into the air, kissing him back and laughing. The bed soft beneath them, Hawke’s hand trailing down his arm—as it is now, gooseflesh rising on his skin—slipping down to hook in the waistband of his trousers. Fenris helps him get them off, eager—

“Think of his strength.”

Hawke presses him down gently. When Fenris’s back hits the bed he finds himself for a moment breathless, with Hawke’s weight bearing down on his chest, and—something wrapped around his middle—and he puts up a brief struggle, mumbling “wait—“ But Hawke is too strong, and keeps him pinned there with little effort.

“Think of his knives.”

Hawke flips him on his stomach and jams a knee into the small of his back. Fenris goes to push himself upright, but Hawke grabs his wrist and yanks it up between his shoulderblades. The pain lances through his twisted shoulder, sharp and hot—and  _that’s_ familiar, with the cool stone pressed against his cheek—where is he again?—and then he feels it—

A dagger-tip, cold and sharp, dragging up the back of his thigh. He freezes, terrified to move, lest the blade slip deeper into his vulnerable flesh. A voice above him, whispering—it must be Hawke’s— “Does it hurt?”

Fenris feels the blade break his skin, the blood welling, trickling down the inside of his thigh. Still he remains unmoved. Hawke is dangerous. Surrendering is safest. And he knows how to receive pain without flinching, to accept the helplessness—

A soft chuckle. “Huh. This is easier than I thought it’d be.”

No.

He knows how to accept the helplessness. But he will not submit himself to that again.

As he did before, he twists around, expecting his shoulder to pop out—a cost worth paying to escape this. He finds instead that Hawke’s grip isn’t so strong this time, and his arm is free. He snaps out a quick jab, and the strike connects, his knuckles splitting on the edges of Hawke’s teeth. There’s a muffled cry of anger. Good.

And then he’s restrained, something thick and heavy pinning his arms to his sides. Voices volley back and forth over him. Right next to his ear laughter booms. “Nice one, Lek!”

“Shut up.” A sulking growl. “I think he knocked one of my teeth loose.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the shackles off.”

“Doesn’t matter. It got the job done.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get him dressed again, would you?”

“Why? They go faster when they’re—“

“Look, I know you’re the expert and all, but it just makes me queasy. You want my help or not? Your Qunlat sucks.”

“Makes you—are you _sure_ you're Ben-Hassrath? Ah, fine. Won’t make much difference.”

Something soft on his ankles, his shins, his knees.

“Wait. Let me take a look at that first.”

He’s turned on his side. A pulling sensation at the back of his leg, followed by the burn of wound pain. He winces, curling up—

“Went kinda deep there, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know he was about to flip over, okay?”

“Uh-huh. You should stick it back together while I’m working on him.”

The warmth leaves his skin, replaced by cool, humid air. Fenris tries to breathe. It’s hard. Then there’s a needle-prick in his arm. He moans and tries to move away—

A low rumble of a voice in his ear. “Asit tal-eb.”

—and then an explosion of euphoria, an easing in his aching shoulder, a glowing warmth radiating down his limbs. The voice in his ear opens into a stream of slow, steady Qunlat. Fenris has trouble at first picking apart the syllables, but as it goes on he gathers the words up, holds them as they make their meaning known. Each one sets off a little ripple of contentment, another balm to soothe the pain.

He’s fed and given water. The Qunlat continues. Fenris realizes he’s hearing things he heard before—but he can understand them better now, and anyway, the voice is calming. He lets it break over him, as the ocean surf breaks over the shore, the tide creeping ever higher.

——

_Maraas shokra. Anaan esaam Qun._

He mutters it when they ask him a question. It’s met with a surprised chuckle. “Listen to him. His accent’s  _way_  better than yours.”

“Fuck off. And get out of the way.”

A rustling. Then a command, by his ear: “Think of Hawke.”

Fenris flinches hard, pressing himself back against the stone. The images flash violently into his mind—Hawke’s clinical gaze, his controlling hands—

“Damn. How’d you—never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Calm down, hissrad, the process doesn’t involve anything that would  _make you queasy_. Anyway, I think we can— _vashedan_ , was that one of your horns?!”

“Hey, you’re the one who said no torches allowed.”

“Because it goes faster in the dark.  _Fuck_ , those things are sharp.”

“Oh yeah. Sharpen ‘em every week.” A grunt. “Is he shaking?”

“Probably.”

“Hm. Give me some time with him.”

The stream of Qunlat again. The words are a comfort. Fenris’s lips move as he imitates them, the parts he remembers. He remembers more and more.

——

“What the…”

Fenris rouses from his half-sleep and listens. There’s a new sound. Not the rumbling far above, not the flow of conversation. Instead it’s a clattering, echoed off uneven stone.

“Shit!” Footsteps thudding toward him, strong hands dragging him to his feet. “Come on, we need to move!”

Fenris stumbles and crashes to his knees. His legs are sound asleep, pins and needles jabbing deep into his inertial muscles.

“Fucking—“ A growl of frustration. “Fine! You’re not worth my fucking life, that’s for sure. Stay here then.”

The footsteps thud away. Fenris remains on his knees. The clattering grows louder. And louder. He doesn’t know what it is and isn’t particularly interested in finding out.

“Legatus, adest aliquis!”

He frowns, thinking. He knows what that means.  _Commander. There’s someone here._

A blaze of fire. Fenris squints, shielding his eyes from the torch, struck half-blind after his time in the dark. Someone kneels before him. This he knows too, the perforated visor, the helmet sporting a blade-sharp crest. The word struggles to the surface.

_Venatori._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The graphic depictions of violence warning is for this chapter (not that graphic in my opinion, but eh). Other things to be aware of include a dissociative episode.

The Venatori raises his visor, revealing a face not Tevinter. “Fenris? Are you all right?”

Fenris knows this face.

“What in Andraste’s name—isn’t this how they collar their mages?”

“Yes.” A second Venatori, lifting his visor. This one looks Tevinter. “A  _stunningly_  uncivilized practice.”

The first man lets out an annoyed sigh. “How do I get it off?”

“By unbuckling it, I imagine.” The second man leans in closer. “Hmm…they gave you something, didn’t they? Let me see if I can help.” His partner circles around behind, and there’s a tugging at the collar.

A bright glow of white and a warmth on Fenris’s arm. Slowly he begins to wake. He knows this man. Both of these men. In front of him, the Tevinter mage— _Dorian_ , who aided him when red lyrium had infected his markings. And the other one, who’s working at his collar—is Commander Cullen.  

A grunt at his back. The soft grasp of the hands around his neck releases him, and there’s a clinking of chains as the halved collar falls forward.

The lyrium wraps around him once again.

His skin burns, but the feeling is welcome, after the sheen of numbness that’s been coating him for—he doesn’t know how long. His arms fold around behind him—not of his own volition, but he doesn’t try to resist, familiar by now with the lyrium’s ability to manipulate his body. It moves his fingers, finding the leather strap, feeding it through the metal loops, pulling up the buckle—

The band around his middle springs open, curling on his lap. Fenris heaves in deep breaths, one after the other, and tries to figure out what’s going on.

“Fenris?” Cullen grasps his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“You—you’re here,” he says, the only coherent thought he can muster at the moment.

“Yes, although we’re doing our best to keep the Venatori ruse in place, in case any of them escape to report back. So if you’re going to speak after we get moving, try to stick to Tevinter.”

Distant details appear in the murk of his confused mind—snatches of some pastoral air, the slow, graceful steps of a dance… “The Qunari alliance. The Inquisitor didn’t want to risk breaking it.”

Cullen sits back on his heel. “No. Not at all, in fact. She, er…doesn’t know we’re here.”

That means something…ah. Doubly important that the ruse be preserved, then. And the zealous remnants of a cult dedicated to the glory of Tevinter isn’t a bad cover for an attack on the Qunari. Fenris squints around the small chamber and counts five more soldiers, all clad in the same white uniforms with the same peaked helmets.

Cullen grasps his shoulder once more. “Can you stand?”

“Better yet, can you fight?” Dorian cuts in.

Fenris frowns. “Fight who?”

The two men exchange a quick look. “Well,” Dorian mutters. “The re-educators have had him at least a couple of days. I suppose we can’t be surprised it started to take.”

A ringing of steel as one of the soldiers in the back unsheathes their sword. But Cullen holds up a warding hand. “Fenris, listen to me. Whatever loyalty you have to the Qun, that’s something they forced on you. It’s not something you chose. Do you remember just before they took you? How you fought one of them?”

Fenris presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, frustrated. Why can’t he remember this? Cullen can, so clearly it happened.

“I’d come to look for you and found you running down a hallway. You told me to hide so I did. Then I heard Bull—you must have hurt him before, he mentioned something about limping—“

“—and all I had to defend myself was a pair of daggers.” The grin feels alien as it stretches Fenris’s mouth, distorting his lips into a shape they haven’t seen in days. “I don’t think I managed even to slow him down before he subdued me.”

“I felt awful abandoning you, but—“

“—I wanted you to. I thought I’d have a chance to save Hawke mys—“

But even as the name tumbles carelessly out of him he’s drawing back, flattening himself against the damp stone wall.

Cullen’s there, still with him. “Fenris? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t save Hawke,” Fenris mumbles, shaking his head. “He’s—dangerous.”

A curse in Tevinter. Cullen glances over his shoulder, then reaches out, placing his hand over Fenris’s. “Hawke… _is_  dangerous, but only to those who would harm others. I knew him in Kirkwall. As did the rest of us.” Cullen indicates the gathered soldiers. “That’s why I chose them. Hawke gave up everything—you both did—to do the right thing when no one else had the courage.” His hand tightens a little. “Myself included. And we wouldn’t stand for leaving him to be converted against his will. Or worse.”

Kirkwall.

Fenris hasn’t thought about it for a while. He does remember the Chantry exploding, of course, when Hawke’s face broke open with abject helplessness. When he turned to Fenris, pleading for help without a word. And Fenris knew already what Hawke had decided. And knew, despite the years of hurt at the hands of the Tevinter mageocracy, what he himself was going to do.

Yet he also remembers other things. Hawke pinning him down on the bed, dragging a knife down his thigh—was it a bed? For a moment he thinks it’s a floor of stone—

He flinches as his skin starts to burn. Cullen’s hand jerks away, the lyrium flaring to life under his palm. The white-blue light starts to scour away some of the murkiness. It  _was_  a stone floor. But where?

Fenris looks up. Cullen’s watching him, apprehensive. In the back Dorian remains wary, and the five soldiers stand perfectly still, the torchlight flickering off their visors.

So Fenris stands, coaxing the lyrium to burn a little brighter. He needs to figure out what the truth of the matter is, and he won’t make himself a liability to these people by allowing the Qunari any more time to prepare. “Let’s go.”

Cullen’s face breaks into a grateful smile before he shuts his visor again.

They meet no resistance. “Must have pulled back,” Cullen murmurs. Fenris nods in reply, considering their odds. Six swords and a mage, plus an unarmed, somewhat unstable Tevinter-trained warrior. Set against the gathered forces of…this place, whatever it is. Cullen must have come along himself only because he couldn’t safely muster any more soldiers, and with a force this small, one extra blade might make all the difference.

Yet as they go deeper, they find no one, not even prisoners, nor any signs there was anyone else here at all. The torchlit side passages trail off into darkness after the first corner. There are no supplies, no discarded needles, no manacles lying empty on the floor.

At the back of the procession, Fenris halts, wavering, planting his hand on the wall. Is this real? This place, these people who came for him? Is he awake right now, or wrapped up in the layered shroud of the drug stupor, buried tomb-deep where truth is something not found but handed to him through the black earth? Fenris gasps for air but cannot get it, his breaths cut off too shallow and quick, and he stares at the stone floor, trying to remember. Are they really here? Or is he alone again?

“Fenris?”

The liquid shimmer of his tattoos reflects off the face of a faceless man. Fenris gazes helplessly at the visor, the helmet becoming some conjured shape, peaked and shining, the holes spearing through into an endless dark. He must have made this. He must have summoned this creature.

Then the visor lifts, revealing high, sharp cheekbones and a concerned frown. “Try and take a few deep breaths. Deep and slow.”

But he can’t. “I—can’t.” His hand strays to his middle, to indicate the leather strap—

Which isn’t there.

The man takes his arm gently. “Talk to me. Anything. Say anything.”

“Shok ebasit hissra,” Fenris mutters. “Meraad astaarit—“

“ _No_ , no, no, not the bloody Qun—“ A defeated sigh. “Er, let’s see—tell me about your favorite place in all of Thedas.”

The first answer that comes to mine is patently ridiculous but still true— “The Hanged Man.” Fenris’s lips curl into a smile. “The worst tavern in Lowtown. The ale was vile and occasionally poisonous, but it got you drunk well enough. Varric was always there—“

“Varric! Delightful fellow.  _Full_  of stories.”

“Indeed. As was Isabela, although hers were somewhat less skillfully told.” He can see both their faces as he thinks of them, laughing, raising their mugs.

The man nods, cautious. “Now why don’t you try another deep breath?”

So Fenris does. And this time it works. His ribs expand, still sore from being constricted so long. He blinks in the torchlight, noticing at last that everyone is waiting for him.

“My apologies.” He straightens, Dorian’s hand falling away from his arm. “How far are we from Skyhold?”

“A day’s hard ride, just north to the coast,” Dorian tells him.

“Hm. This place is clearly not one of their viddathlok.” He can’t smell the seawater anymore but suspects it’s only because he’s grown accustomed to it. “The temples where they take those outsiders who resist the Qun. I suspect it was put together especially to house Hawke, and, to a lesser extent, me.” He starts walking, and the soldiers move with him. “Hawke is very good at escape, and escape is easier during transport than from inside a fortified position. The proximity to Skyhold minimized such an opportunity. As for the passages to nowhere, I believe they were an illusion, should either Hawke or I be exposed to them, that this place housed a number of Ben-Hassrath. A false display of power.”

“Then…” Cullen, beside him. “You think there’s only a small force here?”

“I  _think,”_  Fenris replies. “I can’t be sure.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.” Then he jerks his head. “You should go to the back. You’re unarmed, and we can protect you better that way.”

Fenris lifts a hand, letting the lyrium seep through his flesh and turn it to light. The act is a joy, after so long being denied it. “I would not call myself unarmed.”

Cullen shrugs. “It’s your choice.”

 _Your choice._ Even after all this time, he still gets a minor thrill from the thought. “Then, if you don’t mind, I will take the vanguard.”

“Are you—sure? You didn’t look so well a moment ago.”

“Yes,” Fenris says, decisive. “They tried to twist me into something that would serve them without question. I take that rather personally.” He rounds the corner.

Perhaps twenty yards down the tunnel stands a very large Qunari holding a heavy axe. “I’m going to be honest,” he calls. “I have got no idea what they’re doing in there. They don’t tell the hissrad much. But they said I had to stop you or things could go sideways. So here I am.” He inclines his head. “Stopping you.”

“Bull,” Cullen hisses, behind his visor. “I suppose I knew he was capable of this, I just—never thought he would.”

“Keep well back,” Fenris murmurs. “I will take care of him.”

“Er—pardon me for saying so, but your last engagement didn’t exactly go—“

“I am aware. Trust me, Commander. I can end this without risking any of your soldiers.”

A pause. Then: “All right.” Cullen nods. “He’s all yours.”

Fenris advances.

“Venatori?” Bull laughs. “Good one. But you guys should probably get out of here. Otherwise, I hope the Inquisition didn’t send anyone they’re going to miss.”

Fenris had thought the axe might be a disadvantage, but the tunnel widens out as he goes, and where Bull’s standing it’s wide enough to allow such a weapon. The haft is long, but the head is short and the Qunari’s hands spaced out. Control over power.

“I’ve got to admit, I thought we made a clean getaway.” A half-shrug. “Guess I was wrong.”

Fenris feels the lyrium bleeding out over his skin, encasing him in insubstantial armor. It’ll deflect glancing blows, but that weapon is heavy. He’ll have to do most of the work himself.

Bull hefts his axe. “Listen, I really don’t want to kill you. Just do yourself a favor and leave now. We won’t come after you.”

The lyrium burn rises higher and higher. Fenris exhales, and he thinks he sees the air before him shimmer with heat.

This will be messy.

The great axe-head swings, and Fenris glides under it. As he comes up, Bull is already moving—his footwork choppy but precise, keeping him between his opponent and the chamber where Hawke remains captive. The butt of the haft jabs out with savage speed, and Fenris has to retreat, his bare feet sliding over the damp stone. The Qunari follows up, charging. Fenris realizes his mistake, how the momentum of that enormous body will be impossible to break.

But Bull stops short, still leashed to the objective of keeping himself between the Inquisition and Hawke. So Fenris must instead avoid another low slash, backing further down the tunnel. This time Bull remains where he is—and Fenris realizes why, as he notes the walls drawn in closer around him. The axe will be useless here. And not only that, but the Qunari is simply too tall to fit without having to crouch.

A moment’s impasse. The Qunari can’t advance any further, and Fenris can’t leave Hawke to the mercy of the re-educators. He could simply let the lyrium take his whole body and walk through Bull to the chamber beyond. But that would expose the seven men and women at his back to that heavy axe, and he promised Cullen he would finish this fight without losing a single soldier.

Fenris decides on a plan. It’s risky, and it’s going to hurt. But if the re-educators don’t want to be interrupted, then Fenris figures he needs to interrupt them. As soon as possible.

He darts forward, reading the butt jabbing out at him again. The strike is high, and he ducks it, grabbing the haft between Bull’s hands. Bull pulls hard and yanks him in. A couple of possibilities here, but Fenris is short and Bull passes over the headbutt, choosing instead a knee to the gut.

If Fenris weren’t anticipating the strike and already arching back, it would have ended the fight in a much less favorable way. But his feet are in motion, and while Bull does knock the breath clean out of him, he’s able to stumble back, to where the walls of the tunnel bow closer around him. He falls to his knees, clutching his stomach with both arms. A deeply disadvantageous position.

And an irresistible target. Bull thunders forward, disregarding the low ceiling. Fenris keeps his eyes down, watches the leather boots, listens for the faint sound of weapon being swung through the air. The great axe-head comes down.

Fenris lets it fall through him and smash into the rock below, throwing up a spray of stone chips.

“Fuck,” Bull whispers.

Fenris unfolds his ghost-body, reveling in the snare, long set, finally drawing shut. The memory of that booming voice crows in his head—  _“Can’t ghost your way out of this one, can you?”_  —as he stands, ethereal now from head to toe, and plunges forward straight into Bull.

It occurs to him at that moment that he’s never tried to materialize inside of another object. He’s done so with an arm, of course, but only a single arm. This is his entire body. He’s still wondering what will happen as he lets the lyrium go. 

There’s a  _thunk_  as Bull’s horns hit the ceiling, the Qunari trying desperately to back away from this phantom but trapped by his own mountainous size. Fenris feels the flesh parting around him as he becomes real again. It’s warm, even under the lyrium burn, warm and soft. He tries to take a breath—foolish—and inhales something liquid and metallic, which sets him to coughing. The warmth leaves him, his skin exposed once more to the humid cave air.

His eyelashes stick together, and he rubs at them with one wet hand, still hacking into his elbow. In some distant corner of his mind he hopes the maneuver worked, because otherwise he’s sure there’s an axe-head falling that’s about to split him in half. The coughing fit overtakes him, and he topples to a knee.

“Fenris? Fenris!”

Cullen’s voice, and steadying hand. Fenris waves him off. “Fine, I’m—“ Another cough. His bruised abdomen complains at the development.

“Good.” The hand leaves his arm. “Get after him! He’s wounded, chase him down!”

Fenris blinks the gore out of his eyes. “No! We need to save Hawke!”

Cullen grimaces. “You’re right. There’s not enough of us to split our forces.” He gestures behind him. “Disregard that order, we go forward!”

Fenris stands, with Cullen’s help, and looks down at himself. Blood coats his front, along with some bits of flesh that, with a detached distaste, he removes. “The hissrad is still alive?”

“Yes. Staggered off down one of these passages. But you nearly took his arm off, and—well, it was hard to tell from where we stood. Still, from how much blood we saw, I can’t imagine he’ll make it very far.”

They advance down the tunnel. Fenris’s heart, racing already from the fight, pounds harder in his throat.  _We need to save Hawke._  He doesn’t know why he shouted that. A reflex, most likely. He still doesn’t remember whether or not Hawke is someone to be scared of. The desperation in Kirkwall, the plea for help that Fenris answered without hesitation, that’s true. But pinning him to the stone floor, twisting his arm behind his back, that’s also true.

Anyway, there’s no time left to figure it out. They round the corner.

The first thing Fenris sees is the two Qunari who attended Hawke before. They wield cleaver-like weapons, half the size of the Bull’s axe, and when the soldiers appear they charge forward. But beyond them, in the torchlight, a glint of bronze—off the thick chains of a saarebas’s collar. Hawke, eyes shut, is still lain out on the table. The saarebas leans over it, rumbling out an invocation. From his arm drips a steady stream of lustrous red blood.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the second-to-last chapter. The last one will be more like an epilogue.

“Blood magic?”

Cullen sounds as surprised as Fenris feels. The Qunari don’t use blood magic—they’re too afraid of their mages. The saarebas must have gone rogue somehow—but of course saarebas don’t choose what they do, they’re directed by an arvaarad. Who must be one of the two Qunari currently charging forward. Fenris figures he should be readying himself.

But the sight of Hawke lying there has him trapped in a petrified state—the dual instincts vying for action, the  _need_  to plunge forward and save Hawke, and hard on its heels the hot flush of terror that pulls him back toward the entrance, away from this man who has hurt him so many times. So he stands, unmoving, hands hanging limp at his sides.

“Fenris?” Cullen’s shield is up, his blade raised. “Fenris!”

The next thing he knows, he’s being shoved sideways into the stone wall as Cullen steps into his place to engage the first Qunari. “Kill the saarebas!” he yells to his soldiers.

The clang of metal on metal as Cullen repels a cleaver-blow. Fenris shuffles back to give him room. The tunnel is wide enough now so that the two Qunari abreast can barely block it. They hold for a moment, until, with a roar that reverberates through the narrow cavern, Cullen lunges shield-first and throws one of them to the ground.

He doesn’t push through, keeping himself firmly in front of Fenris. But one of the soldiers darts forward, a slight woman with a pair of daggers, slipping past the fallen Qunari and heading straight for the saarebas. Then the gap is closed off, and Cullen is defending himself once again. Defending the both of them.

Fenris finds he wants to stay here, crouched against the wall, to wait for someone else to figure it all out. The truth of the matter. Whether Hawke should or should not be saved. But Cullen is in danger, all these soldiers are in danger, fighting against opponents half again as large as they are.

So Fenris pushes himself off the wall, drawing the lyrium over him, becoming a ghost once more.

He goes around Cullen—he’s been told that sharing space with his phantom flesh is somewhat alarming—but he passes straight through the Qunari, who lets out a startled  _“vashedan—“_  before Cullen’s sword chops him in the neck. The second is outnumbered and easily overwhelmed after that.

With both of them dead, Fenris backs away to the entrance and sinks down against the wall, clutching his knees. He doesn’t want to think about Hawke. Who conjures equally the feeling of safety, that  _everything will be all right_ —and also the certainty that he’s about to be hurt, the sickening anticipation of a hand on his throat, or a bruising grip on his wrist—

A shout of pain.

The Inquisition soldiers, circled around the table, draw back sharply. Blades stowed away are unsheathed once more. “Don’t hurt him!” Cullen’s voice. “Hawke, we’re not— _damn_  it all—“ The clang of a blocked blow. “Dorian, what did the saarebas do to him?!”

“I don’t know! If I could take a look at him—“

“Yes, I’ll just hold him still, shall I?!” A grunt, another clang.

Fenris rises. He isn’t sure why, and thinks for a moment the lyrium is moving him, but the burning of his skin hasn’t changed.

Hawke is attacking Cullen, who’s backing away across the floor. He’s as quick as he ever was, and it’s only the fact that he’s so boxed in that’s keeping Cullen from getting stabbed. Fenris doesn’t know where Hawke got the knife—perhaps took it off the dead saarebas, or stole it from one of the soldiers surrounding him. He murmurs something, although the words are too quiet to make out. Cullen falls for a feint and is forced to pivot to avoid the real blow, opening up space for Hawke to move. But now his back is to Fenris, and when Hawke’s eyes slide over his shoulder—

Fenris flinches.

Hawke stills, the knife slipping from his grasp and clattering to the floor. “Fenris?”  He takes an unsteady step forward. “Are you…are you…”

Then there’s a  _crack_  as the end of Dorian’s staff whips into Hawke’s temple. He crumples, Cullen catching him and letting him down.

Fenris remembers.

 _I love you._  Six years in Kirkwall spent convincing himself he couldn’t have what he wanted most. Yet that conviction never reached Hawke, who didn’t push but just waited, quietly, with infinite patience, for Fenris to come around. And when he did the following months were nothing but joy, despite the city falling apart around them. Hawke kissing him, laughing, half-disbelieving himself, whispering  _I love you_  with such tenderness as Fenris had never known, never thought was possible. Certainly never anticipated. And afterwards, when it was just the two of them ducking soldiers at every turn, still Fenris felt safe, and happy, and loved.

“Hawke?” He stumbles forward, then finds his balance. “Hawke!” Dorian is kneeling there already, and Fenris joins him. “What did they do?”

“I’m trying to figure that out,” Dorian says through gritted teeth, his hand pressed to Hawke’s forehead, his magic throwing off a crystalline white glow. Behind him the saarebas’s spilled blood drips off the table to add to the pool below, still growing as it seeps out of the bronze-chained corpse.

Cullen scans his troops. “Is everyone all right?”

A few bruises, some nastier wounds that will require stitches. But no lives were lost. Fenris feels a fraction of tension slip out of him. No one died for his sake.

Then Dorian sits back, panic flickering on his face but quickly subdued. “It’s—not good news.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” Fenris demands.

“The saarebas was—altering his mind somehow. If their normal methods weren’t working fast enough, and they were suddenly attacked—this must have been a last resort. And since we interrupted the ritual—blood magic is volatile, and, it’s—out of control, it’s—bending things in ways they’re not supposed to be—”

 _No._  Not Hawke. “Then stop it!”

Dorian shakes his head. “I can’t. This is blood magic, and I may be plenty of things, but I’m not a blood mage.”

 _Then become one!_  Fenris recoils from the thought, abashed that it would even occur to him, and shunts it aside. “Is it a question of power?”

He hesitates. “Well, if I had a  _generous_  supply of lyrium, then I might stand a chance, but—“

“—we couldn’t risk taking any.” Cullen looks grim. “It’s too heavily regulated.”

Fenris watches Hawke, heart thudding so hard against his ribs it’s starting to hurt. Every few seconds a minor convulsion runs through Hawke’s body, his brow creasing, fingertips twitching. Fenris sits frozen, though the decision is made. It’s simply his own courage that’s lagging behind.

But there’s no time. Hawke gets worse by the second. So Fenris sticks out his arm. “Use me.”

Dorian stares, struck momentarily dumb. Then he stutters out, “Can I—is that even possible?”

“You would know better than I, you’re the one who examined me when I was poisoned.”

“Well—I  _did_ , but there’s still no way to say—“

Danarius tried, many times over the years, to yoke the markings to his own power. Each session produced nothing but a scowl of disappointment. He never punished Fenris for the failures, although Fenris believed it was his own fault and felt stupid and useless for not being able to do anything about it. But after the Larannis incident, the lyrium has been…different. More responsive, certainly. “Do you have a better idea?” he snaps.

“No, but—“ Dorian exhales. “Are you  _sure?”_

It’s a valid question. Fenris already hates the fact that this man—a mage, a  _Tevinter_  mage—was allowed to examine his markings in the first place, even if it was the only way to save him from the red lyrium. And now, to allow such a man to use him like this—

Hawke moans, eyelids fluttering. His hand drags over the stone, grasping weakly at nothing.

Fenris offers his arm again. “Yes!”

So Dorian grasps it, fingers digging into Fenris’s skin. Fenris sucks in a violent breath—

The cave falls away.

No more stone beneath his knees. No cool, humid air, no scent of decay, no more salty grime on his fingertips. No flicker of torches. No dead Qunari, no spreading pool of blood. No Hawke before him, nor Cullen beside him.

Only Dorian remains.

Battering at the doors. Fenris lets him in more as a matter of formality than anything else. He couldn’t put up a fight if he wanted to, and he doesn’t want to. Not here, where everything is light and fine. It reminds him of those times when he would visit the estate after a difficult day and crawl into Hawke’s bed and lie there under the covers, the sheets soft against his bare skin. And he would wait for Hawke’s touch, the one thing that could truly strip all the hardships and exhaustion away and make him feel  _safe_ —

—but this time it’s Dorian, who has him lain out, relaxed, waiting for that final comfort. Then Dorian asks, and Fenris answers eagerly,  _yes, take it._  Unfolds himself.  _Take as much as you need._

Dorian opens him up.

Fenris shivers— _sensitive,_  he didn’t know he was that sensitive—but he lies still, lacking the desire to resist. The sensation is everywhere—Dorian’s touch, gentle, gliding over every inch of him, facets that he’s never revealed to anyone else, that he never even knew were there. Yet Dorian finds them, exposes them with absolute ease, and—Fenris drags in a shuddering breath— _uses_  them. He strips away the armor, the coiled reflex of self-defense, as if it were no more than papier-mâché.

Fenris welcomes it, pressing nearer, seeking the warmth, the closeness. Dorian receives him without hesitation, surrounding him in a way that might be smothering if it weren’t so gentle. He takes more and more, his touch growing surer but never losing the tenderness that draws Fenris in like a small green sprig reaching for the sun—

The stone floor rushes up beneath him with such force that he’s certain his knees will bruise.

The cave. The cool, humid air, the scent of decay—and Dorian in the torchlight, staring at him, face twisted with a wretched chagrin.

“Did it work?” Cullen asks urgently.

Dorian claps a hand over his mouth as if holding down bile, and nods.

Fenris crawls closer to him. He feels—vulnerable, helpless. Needs to be protected—to be  _touched_ —

Then he realizes what he’s doing and flinches back. Seeking the touch of a Tevinter mage? Self-disgust swills around inside him, mixing with dark, viscous shame, the tide of it rising so high he feels it compressing his lungs, squeezing the air out of his chest. He sits back, crushing his hands to his face. Whatever happened with his markings, it left him with—this.

Worse, the feeling refuses to abate. Like he’s made of Orlesian lace, so fragile that the smallest snag will unravel him completely. And the need to be touched, by Dorian—or anyone else who will keep him safe, hide him from the cool air that condenses on his bare skin—

“I need to—repair the damage that’s already been done.” Dorian stares at nothing for a moment, then shakes his head. “But if someone will carry him, I can do it as we go.”

“All right.” Cullen rises and offers a hand to Fenris. But Fenris doesn’t take it, won’t bow to this desire that isn’t his. He stands on his own.

Is this what Danarius wanted? The ability to invoke this feeling in his slave, at any time he wished? Now Fenris recognizes it and knows to resist, but back then—he would have let it take him without question, would have crawled into Danarius’s arms and been grateful it. And the devotion he would owe to one who answered such a need—like what he feels for Dorian now, the instinct to plead for a touch, an embrace, as if he can find safety there and nowhere else—

A convulsive shiver runs over him, and he staggers, catching himself on the wall. Wraps his arms around his body.

Then Dorian, eyes firmly averted, offers him something. A Venatori mage’s cloak, in gold and white. Dorian, left in just the drab tunic, mutters, “Here. Not much, but it’s better than nothing.”

The cloak is thin, made for show rather than function. But Fenris wraps it around himself, lets the scratchy fabric with its rough embroidery settle on his bare skin. He can’t bring himself to express any kind of thanks.

Cullen organizes a search for Bull, although he seems to believe it cursory, and that the wound was fatal. Fenris wonders exactly what he did. All Cullen can tell him is “there was a lot of blood.”

“What about the human?” Fenris asks.

Cullen freezes. “What human?”

“There was a human. Viddathari. He worked with the hissrad.”

Cullen’s jaw sets. “We didn’t see any humans before we found you. And in this place…” He sighs. “There’s no telling how far these tunnels go. And we need to get you both back to somewhere we can protect you.”

“But…he may help the hissrad escape. They’ll know you were Inquisition. The alliance…”

“After what we saw in there, I’m not too concerned if they find out who we are.”

Fenris gazes at Hawke, who’s still unconscious, attended by Dorian.  _Somewhere we can protect you._  Will that be enough? Will that resolve this sense of vulnerability, this need to be held?

The small cadre of soldiers comes back with reports of a blood trail that disappeared into the dark. They ask if they should pursue. Cullen shakes his head and issues orders to move out.

——

It’s raining.

They exit at the base of a sea-cliff, facing a grey expanse of stormy water. Dark clouds hang heavy in the sky. The rocks that lead down to the narrow beach are covered in bright green seaweed, long, ropey clumps hanging down like broken-off mop heads. At high tide Fenris imagines they float in the tide pools, forming a gentle halo in the swirl of water before the great wave recedes, sucking them out into thick bundles that drape wetly over the juts of stone. Then the water rushes back, filling the pools again, and the strings of green float freely once more.

“It’s raining,” he mumbles.

Cullen turns to him. “You…were down there three days.”

The sand is black, sparkling with mica even in the weak sun. Fenris finds suddenly he doesn’t want to be near anyone. The temptation is too great, to ask them,  _please, I need you, will you just hold me_ — “Can I go down there?“ He nods at the beach.

“I think we can spare a few minutes,” Cullen replies.

Fenris descends the rocks, careful not to slip on the moss-like carpet of seaweed. The rain is light and collects on his face, providing some small relief from the overwhelming desire to be touched. He walks onto the black shore, sand sticking to his soles as he approaches the water. The surf wells between his toes, rises up past his ankles, gradually heaping sand over his feet.

But he knows they need to move, in case more Qunari come—as messengers, or to relieve the force stationed here. So he comes up the beach again, following Cullen, the soldiers (Hawke borne between two of them), and Dorian. Wraps the cloak tighter around himself and wishes this feeling would abate, before he gives in to it.

They walk along the rocky shore for a time, then climb a narrow path up the cliffside, met with a thick pine forest at the top. The firs are drenched by now from the rain, and fat droplets fall from their needles onto Fenris’s hair. At last they reach a small clearing where a young woman sits inside a sturdy wooden wagon, surrounded by a half-dozen horses all grazing peaceably. She waves as they approach.

“We’ll stop at a hunter’s cabin we passed.” Cullen helps to drag Hawke into the wagon. “Much as I’d love to ride through the night, our horses need the rest.”

Fenris nods and climbs in.

Dorian stays, tending to Hawke. Fenris shrinks back into the corner, still repulsed by how strong the urge is to go to this man, how weak he must be to have this much trouble fighting it. Cullen stays as well, hauling the doors shut and smacking the wooden wall. The wheels grind on their axles, and the wagon rumbles forward.

For a moment they remain silent in the half-dark, grey light filtering through the pines to reach them through the two tiny windows. Fenris rests his chin on his knees, watches the water drip from his hair onto his feet. Then Cullen speaks. “Fenris…I don’t want to pry.”

Fenris looks up.

“But if you want to talk about—what happened…you can talk to me.”

His face is so earnest that Fenris can’t help smiling. “Thank you, Commander. For everything. I know you took a great risk coming to retrieve us.”

Cullen heaves a sigh. “It just wasn’t right, leaving you both to this fate. I had to do  _something.”_

“It’s a good thing you did. If it weren’t for you, I have no doubt the Qunari would have broken us both. We owe you our lives.”

But Cullen shakes his head. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Fenris leans back, relaxing a little. “As you say. Still, if you ever need anything…” He smiles faintly. “Hawke isn’t one for following a banner. But if the Inquisition needs aid in an…unsanctioned capacity, you have only to come to us.”

Cullen nods. “Thank you.”

The light fades out as they go on, until the three of them are sitting in the dark, the only illumination the pristine glow of Dorian’s healing magic. At last the wagon lurches to a halt, and the doors swing open.

The hunting cabin is tiny, certainly not large enough to house eight. The soldiers are setting up camp outside as Fenris exits the wagon. Cullen and Dorian follow him, carrying Hawke. But as he approaches the cabin, he spots a yellow light flickering through the window.

He halts abruptly. Behind him Cullen whispers, “What’s wrong?”

“Someone inside,” he replies, and draws closer, cautious. The soldiers, too, have noticed, and there’s a series of ringing sounds as blades are drawn from their sheaths. Fenris grasps the knob, dredging up a mere spark of power from his markings—they’ve been dead since the sea cave—and opens the door.

A sheen of red. The Nightingale sits, flanked by four agents, a candle by her elbow. “Fenris. Come in. And bring the commander with you, please.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Welp, every single time I think my last chapter’s going to be epilogue-sized it ends up being the longest one. Additionally, it turns out there is sexual content here but it’s very brief. Anyways, this story ended up unsatisfying for me and I can’t figure out why (if you have any ideas…) but I hope y’all enjoyed it regardless.

“Well, it almost worked,” Cullen mutters behind him.

Fenris steps inside, making room for Cullen and Dorian to haul Hawke through. There’s a low cot in a corner of the room, and they lay him down on it while one of Leliana’s green-hooded agents takes the candle over to the fireplace. Dorian remains at the bedside, although the white glow of his healing magic dimmed to nothing perhaps an hour ago. Fenris stands by the wall and rubs at his face once more. He tried to scrub away all the blood while he was in the wagon, so he wouldn’t get it on the extra clothes they’d brought for him. But he keeps feeling it on his skin, on his forehead, his lips, his neck.

Cullen straightens, turning with reluctance to face his accuser. “Listen, I know—“

Leliana cuts him off as she stands. “Did you let any of them escape?”

“We—yes, but—“

“Then it’s over.” She shakes her head. “They won’t uphold the alliance after an attack on—“

“Leliana, they were using blood magic!”

That stops her. The two stare at each other in the half-dark, while Fenris tries to disappear into the shadows by the wall, lest he be assigned blame. One more thing to trickle down through the gaps left by Dorian’s gentle rending earlier, to join the tar-thick mixture of shame he’s already having trouble keeping down—

“That can’t be true,” Leliana says.

“I saw it. We all did. They had a saarebas working on Hawke…“ Cullen casts a quick glance over to Fenris. “Dorian was able to fix him. But don’t you see what this means? The Qunari can’t have known about this. We bring it to their attention, they might even thank us. Even if they did know, they’ll have to disavow it publicly. And if they don’t—if they truly have approved the use of blood magic to re-educate prisoners—then we won’t let the alliance stand anyway, will we?” Cullen breaks off. The fire is just starting to light, throwing off a warm orange glow. When there’s no response, he presses.  _“Will_  we?”

“No. Of course not.” Leliana presses her lips together. Then: “Please leave us. I’d like to speak to Hawke and Fenris alone.”

Dorian half-rises. “Can’t we save all that for the morning? Really, I think they deserve a rest.”

“No. We can’t.”

Her tone is mild but it brooks no argument. There’s a moment’s standoff, but then Cullen goes to leave. On his way out he grasps Fenris’s shoulder. A gesture of support that resolves all too soon, as he and Dorian head back outside, pulling the door shut behind them.

“Fenris. Why don’t you sit down?” She motions to the chair.

Fenris sits, aware suddenly of how she has four agents with her and he has only Hawke, still asleep on the cot, and himself—unsettled, afraid, and branded with dead markings.

“See if you can wake him up.” She nods at Hawke. Two of her agents detach to follow her orders. The third drifts around to place herself between Fenris and the door, and the last finishes with the fireplace, coming over to stand beside the chair.

Leliana sighs. “So. You’re viddathari now, are you?”

Fenris blinks, waiting for her words to make sense. Then— “What? No!”

“Hm. You’ll pardon me if I’m reluctant to take your word for it.”

“You think they converted me?” Fenris almost rises, but the agents to either side of him give him pause. “I promise you they did no such thing. I have no loyalty to the Qun. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

There’s a pack lying on the table, and she opens it, searching. “I want to believe you. Truly, I do. But you must understand, I cannot afford to take risks.” A worn leather kit appears in her hand. “I must keep the welfare of the Inquisition foremost in my mind, before any other concerns. Especially since others seem unable to do so.” She glances pointedly at the closed door. “If you cooperate, the procedure will be painless.”

The kit falls open. Shining glass bottles, filled with liquid in various dark hues, purple, green, and black. Leliana selects one—shimmering deep teal-blue, like the feathers of a starling—and withdraws from the fabric lining a little silver needle.

“No,” Fenris moans. “Not again.”

“It won’t hurt, or make you sick. You may feel…confused. It’s meant to make lying more difficult.” She dips the needle into the bottle.

Fenris grips his chair, leaning forward slightly. He would prefer pain or sickness over the drug haze, where time is taken away, the truth confiscated, even his own thoughts and feelings denied him. But the agents’ hands clamp down on his arms, and his grip springs open in a reflex of fear. The desire to be touched, left so long unfulfilled, has transformed him into an empty vessel, and the threat of their hands fills his parched skin, flushing through it like the flush of heat when Hawke has him naked, breathless and desirous—

“Surely you can guess that resistance will be taken as a sign of guilt.” Leliana pushes his sleeve up, past the elbow.

“Please don’t.” He remains relaxed, perfectly still, exquisitely aware of the possibility of reprisal. “Please. I’ll submit myself to any other test, just not this.”

“It’ll only make you sleepy for a while. And if you haven’t been converted, then you’re amongst friends. There’s nothing to worry about.” She runs one gloved thumb over the corded muscle of his arm.

_“Get away from him.”_

Leliana whips around.

Hawke staggers to his feet, wavering. His guards stay close, looking to Leliana for orders. She narrows her eyes. “I’m not going to hurt him.”

“He said stop. So stop.” He lists slightly, hunching. Something about the posture sets off a peal of memory in the back of Fenris’s mind.

“I’m afraid this must be done.” She gives her agents a curt nod. The one to Hawke’s right grabs his arm.

The injured hunch slips from Hawke’s shoulders like a cloak cast off. Of course. The broken-wing gambit. Hawke wraps the man up and slams him down on the table. There’s a nasty  _crack_ , and Fenris isn’t sure if it’s wood or bones breaking. The agent’s pained yell seems to indicate the latter. When Hawke disentangles himself, he’s holding a dagger.

Then the weapons come out. Leliana and her agents form a semicircle as best they can in the small space, knives glinting. The fire’s glow wraps around Hawke, splashing him with a lively orange. The flickering light brushes the crumpled fabric of his shirt, throws shadows across his face, glitters in his eyes—

For a second Fenris sees in him the same kind of pure, untouched anger that resides at the core of the rage demons they’ve fought in Kirkwall and occasionally since. Fenris flinches, pulls his knees to his chest, crunching himself up into as small a space as he can manage.

Then the door bursts open, Cullen striding in. “What was that noise?!”

Leliana wards him back. “Be careful. Blood magic is powerful. Perhaps he was not as ‘fixed’ as you think.”

“Yes, he  _was!”_ Dorian pushes his way inside. “Maker’s  _bones_ , Fenris let me use the lyrium in his tattoos! That was  _more_  than enough power to break the spell! I’ve been with him since this afternoon, he’s clean!”

Leliana glances at him quickly, keeps her stance. But at that Hawke falters, his knife drifting down. “Fenris…you—did what?”

“It was the only way,” Fenris mutters.

Hawke casts the knife down onto the floor. “I’m sorry.”

The bright core of anger is gone. Fenris uncurls himself, still cautious, and stands. Hawke takes a step, then halts, still blocked off by Leliana and her agents; but she waves them off, and they sheathe their weapons, parting, one going to tend to her groaning companion.

Hawke comes forward and embraces Fenris.

At last. The need answered, the pricking of the threat left in his skin now washed away by the gentle tide of safety, like the clear ocean surf on the black beach rising over his ankles. “Hawke—“ Fenris presses his face into Hawke’s shoulder and holds him tight, wanting never to let go. Never to acknowledge anything outside of this moment, anything the Qunari did to him in the sea cave, nor what Dorian did later.

Hawke kisses his hair—his blood-cracked hair—and tells him, “I love you.”

From his left there’s a sigh. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

——

Cullen tells as much as he can. Fenris’s only contribution is an affirmation that they used drugs, not blood magic. Hawke says the same—with the exception of those last moments, for which he wasn’t conscious. And Dorian, again, confirms that there’s no magic acting on either of them.

Leliana accepts the report stoically. Afterwards she stands and announces she’s going back to Skyhold immediately to try and head off the inevitable mess. After she and her agents have left them alone, Cullen lets out a long breath. “And I thought I was so careful.”

“Not to worry, Commander.” Dorian offers a tired smile. “I think that went rather well, all things considered.”

“Yes. All things considered.” Cullen pushes himself off the wall. “Are you two all right?”

Fenris sits with Hawke on the cot, leaned back against his chest. At Cullen’s question he reaches up, takes Hawke’s hand where it’s draped around his shoulder, and nods.

“Good. We’ll get you back to Skyhold by tomorrow evening.” Cullen heads for the door. “Come on, let’s leave them alone.”

Dorian pauses in the doorway, glances over his shoulder at Fenris. He looks for a moment as if he’s about to say something, but then he turns away and walks out into the night.

After they’re alone, Hawke rises and strips his clothes off. Fenris follows suit, and they wet their shirts to wipe the worst of the salt and grime from themselves. Yet when Fenris turns his back to Hawke, a shiver runs down his spine, and he feels as if he’s left himself terribly exposed, that any moment a clever knife is going to slip quiet and quick between his ribs—

—so he whips around and Hawke is standing there naked, staring at Fenris’s thigh. “What happened to you?”

“Oh.” Fenris twists and tries to see the wound. It’s a thin scab by now, a long line with one short branch covered over with black paste. “Something they did to me. I’d forgotten. It barely hurts.”

Hawke rests a hand on his waist and kisses him.

They dress again in the clothes Cullen brought for them and lie on the cot. The fire has warmed the small space, and the crackle is soothing, far better than the thick silence of the sea cave. Hawke’s heartbeat thuds warm and steady under Fenris’s ear. He remembers this and can’t believe he ever doubted it—the intimacy, so deep nothing in this world could shake it.

But the drugs did.

“They tried to make me think…you hurt me,” Fenris murmurs. “And…I believed them. I’m sorry. I should have—“

“They—tried to make me think the same thing.”

Fenris lifts his head. “That I’d hurt you?”

“No. That  _I’d_  hurt  _you._ And I—it made sense to me, somehow. That it  _had_  happened.”Hawke strokes Fenris’s back. “I keep…telling myself I could never do it but—“

“—you couldn’t. It was just something they put in your head.”

Hawke doesn’t reply.

Fenris curls his hand against Hawke’s chest. That foreign desire is largely sated, and he no longer feels so utterly defenseless. Yet some part of it remains, like a layer of film clinging close to his skin. He shifts, drags himself higher. “When I allowed Dorian to—use me.”

“Hm?”

“It felt as if—he’d opened me up completely. And I didn’t even want to resist. I just—gave myself to him. Anything he wanted.” Fenris halts, the shame glimmering to life again as he remembers his own eager assent.  _Yes, take it. Take as much as you need._

Hawke waits, runs his fingers through Fenris’s hair.

Fenris hesitates, then kisses Hawke’s neck. “I—don’t want him to be the last one who touched me like that.”

A second of silence. Then Hawke asks gently, “Are you sure?”

Fenris nods. “Yes.”

Hawke kisses him, and slips a hand down between his legs.

Later, lain out, with Hawke’s mouth on him, Fenris finds his entire body tensing in abject terror, his eyes pricking, breath snagging in his chest. Where is this place? What has happened to him? Why has he made himself vulnerable again? But then Hawke reaches up and twines their fingers together, and the tension drains away, the terror dispelled like a curl of smoke in the breeze.

When the orgasm hits he comes apart. His first instinct is to cry out, to plead with Hawke for—something, he doesn’t know. He presses a hand to his mouth so as not to wake anyone camped just outside the walls, instead just whimpers into his palm, unable to stay quiet. Hawke holds him as his hips buck, his back arching off the cot.

For a while afterward he doesn’t move. Hawke stays there between his legs, kisses the long, shallow wound up the back of his thigh.

Then they lie beside each other once more. The layer of film is gone, and Hawke’s skin is warm and soft on his own.

——

When he wakes, after he remembers where he is and who’s sleeping next to him, it’s as if none of it ever happened.

The sea cave seems like a vivid daydream, or a memory he hasn’t thought of in a long time. He feels…normal, as far as he can tell. Hawke shifts and mumbles in his sleep. Fenris settles on his chest again, his mind empty of thoughts, until Cullen knocks sharply on the door and reports they’re moving out soon.

Fenris insists on riding rather than traveling in the wagon. He decides he’s had enough of enclosed spaces, and it’ll be good to use his muscles again. Hawke rides next to him, through the thick fir trees and up into the Frostbacks. The lyrium eases to life again, slowly, and Fenris welcomes it, armed once more. Skyhold looms just as the sun is disappearing, deep orange-red saturating the western sky in the valleys between the peaks. Cullen hides himself away inside the wagon on their return, but he emerges once they reach the stables and leads the way to the kitchens. Even scraps are better than what Fenris is used to these days, and the meal leaves him with a sort of hazy contentment. Hawke is unusually silent, and Fenris finds he hasn’t much desire to talk either. He does linger to thank Cullen one more time before he and Hawke retire together.

The next morning they sleep in. Fenris wakes a few times, watching the light through the curtains grow brighter and brighter, but he doesn’t rise, not yet. He feels as if he must readapt himself to Hawke’s presence somehow. So he stays, growing faintly frustrated as the feeling refuses to abate. He  _knows_  Hawke. Has known him for years.

A knock at the door. “May I come in?”

Hawke groans. Fenris calls out, “One moment.”

There are spare clothes in the closet, and Fenris dresses himself with reluctance. Hawke, still sleepy, is somewhat slower, but eventually he, too, is decent, and Fenris opens the door.

Dorian stands in the hall, looking as if he hasn’t slept a wink. “The war council wishes to meet with both of you. As soon as possible, they told me.”

Of course they do. Fenris heaves a sigh. “All right. We’ll—“

“But I—was wondering if I might speak with you first. Fenris.”

He pauses, not entirely sure whether or not he wants to have this conversation. But there’s still a nagging curiosity at the back of his mind that stayed with him all day yesterday and hasn’t gone yet. So he steps back. Hawke glances between the two of them, then kisses Fenris on the cheek. “I’ll go get us something to eat and meet you there.” He brushes by Dorian and down the hall. 

Fenris shuts the door. The room is warm despite the settling of autumn, and he rolls up his sleeves, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Yes?”

Dorian kneads his hands together, struggling to speak. Fenris doesn’t know him well but is used to a high-bred verbosity that’s normally harder to stop than get started, and he certainly wasn’t expecting this rocky silence. Finally Dorian exhales. “I need to apologize. For what I did to you. I didn’t mean to, but that’s hardly the point.”

“Oh.” An apology. Fenris drags himself back on the bed, leaning against the wall. He decides he doesn’t want to have this conversation after all, but it’s a bit late for that. “I didn’t think you’d meant it.”

Dorian looks as if he’s keeping some wild creature trapped inside his chest, and the scraping and thrashing is starting to take its toll. “It’s just that while I was—drawing from you—I  _knew_  you. Everything about you. All of your fears and desires, all your hopes, what gives you comfort, the things you’re ashamed of…and I could feel you  _letting me in_ , which I  _know_  you wouldn’t have done in a thousand years if you’d been conscious of what was happening. It…” He heaves a sigh. “It was something neither of us should have walked into unprepared. Or at all, really.”

Obviously. Fenris shrugs with one shoulder. “It was the only way.”

“Yes, unfortunately. And Hawke  _is_  all right now because of it.” Dorian’s quick speech lurches to a halt, and he hovers in the middle of the little room, his fingers crushed together. “Afterwards, when I came out of it, all those things I learned—it was like when you wake up from a dream, and you know that if you don’t go over every detail in your head, you’re going to forget it all in five minutes. So I chose to forget, and it worked. Mostly. There was—one thing that surprised me, and…it didn’t disappear with everything else. And I thought I should tell you, in the interests of honesty, that I know it.” He takes a deep breath. “Some part of you is afraid of Hawke.”

Fenris receives the news with unfocused apathy. Some part of him is afraid of Hawke. Well, that’s what the Qunari wanted, isn’t it? Unless it was there before. An uncertainty that’s been there ever since he first saw Hawke’s rage break its embankments and has only grown since with each new incident, Hawke becoming less a man and more a natural force, unassailable, something against which one cannot defend but only hide from and pray to the Maker they don’t end up buried or drowned…

“I’m sorry.”

Fenris stares at his hands, at the lyrium lines marking his palms, splitting his fingers. “Is there any way to stop it?”

“You mean—if someone tries that again?”

“Yes.”

“Well—it’s hard to say.” Dorian taps his chin. “I don’t expect any mage could just lay a hand on you and do what I did—I had to depend on my previous knowledge of the tattoos. Although I am certainly not the most powerful mage you’re ever likely to meet. Could you stop it? I don’t know. Maybe with…” The absurdity of the thought cracks his face into a humorless smile. “…practice.”

Fenris finds himself considering asking Dorian for just such help. Somehow he doesn’t discard the idea immediately, and his surprise at that fact only feeds the pondering.

But Dorian interrupts his thoughts. “There’s one more thing I need to apologize for.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s about Bull.” Dorian sits on the edge of the desk, folding his arms. “He and I were…I don’t know. Can you really be ‘together’ with a Qunari? Well, we were something. And I had absolutely no idea he would do this. Maybe that he  _could_ , but I never thought he would. I feel like I should’ve…been able to warn someone. So I’m sorry for being a—blind fool.”

“He was a spy. Of course he was a good liar.”  _Like Hawke._  Fenris rubs his eyes. He doesn’t want to think about that right now. “Don’t fault yourself for that.”

“Hm.” Dorian doesn’t seem convinced. Then he pushes himself off the desk. “I should let you go. I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”

“Wait—“ Fenris stands, and goes to grasp Dorian’s wrist before stopping himself. “May I?”

“Er—“ Dorian, hesitant, lifts his hand.

Fenris takes it and places it on his own arm.

Nothing happens. No vertiginous tilting-off into some light, soft place where he offers himself to anyone who might think of asking. The lyrium doesn’t even react.

“Hm.” Fenris takes his arm back, curiosity sated. “That was all I wanted.”

“Oh. All right.” Dorian grasps the door handle.

“One more thing—”

“Yes?”

Fenris curls his toes into the ragged red carpet but does not look away. “Thank you. For the apology.”

Dorian blinks. “I…yes. Well.”

Then he’s out the door, but Fenris calls after him again. “Dorian!”

He appears again in the threshold. “What? What is it?”

Fenris plucks a coat out of the closet. “I’m afraid you’ll have to show me where the meeting is. This place is a maze.”

“Oh—of course. I can do that.”

——

The meeting is largely painless. Again, Cullen takes it upon himself to shield Hawke and Fenris from scrutiny. The Inquisitor is the smallest one in the room but her displeasure is towering. Hawke hides in a corner and eats his bread and jam in silence. Fenris hides behind him and does the same.

Afterwards Hawke leads Fenris to the gardens. They’re incredibly lush, thick bundles of green interspersed with sprays of vivid color. Hawke offers his hand.

Fenris hesitates, then takes it.

Hawke names the flowers as they go. “Daylilies, with that ring of red. Spiderwort, and the lighter purple one over there, I think that’s harebell, that whole carpet of it. The little yellow ones are yarrow. And of course, those are enormous things are peonies.”

The stone path is sun-warmed under Fenris’s feet. “Can these really all be used for poisons?”

“What? Oh, no. Entirely decorative. I just like flowers. Our next-door neighbors in Lothering had fantastic gardens.”

“Hm.” Fenris gazes at the abundance of blooms, the smoky pink peonies bowed under their own weight, the star-shaped harebell crowding beneath them.  _Some part of you is afraid of Hawke._ The green leaves of the spiderwort spill onto the path, brushing his ankle as he walks.

“And those are irises, bearded. Like me.” Hawke chuckles to himself.

Fenris leans over and kisses his cheek. “I love you.”

Hawke wraps an arm around Fenris’s waist. “I love you too.”

It seems as if he wants to say something else, but he remains silent. Fenris wants to say something too but isn’t sure exactly what.

“And those are chrysanthemums, the orange ones.” Hawke points.

Fenris leans on his shoulder and listens to the the names of flowers, relaxes into the comfort of Hawke’s arm around him. Tries to convince himself there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Not now.


End file.
